Canucks rebound, collapse, fall to Penguins in shootout

Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann
, PNG

VANCOUVER — On a day that was all about the Olympics, the Vancouver Canucks delivered another medal-worthy collapse.

After coming back from two goals down to take a 4-2 lead, the Canucks surrendered two late goals in the last 1:11 of the third and lost 5-4 in a shootout to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.

It was just the latest late-game meltdown by a Canuck team that has now lost five straight.

The Canucks are looking like an especially fragile team when they try to close out games.

“I don’t know about fragile, but when you get scored on this many times in the last minute of the game -- two tonight -- it doesn’t feel good,” said Vancouver defenceman Kevin Bieksa. “It’s in the back of your mind. I’m not too worried. I think we’ll get out of it. But at the same time, these are points that we need.”

Two points looked to be in the bag for the Canucks when Chris Higgins and Zack Kassian scored 17 seconds apart 13 minutes into the third to give Vancouver a 4-2 lead.

But the Penguins had other ideas. Pittsburgh scored two late goals with goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury on the bench for an extra attacker to force overtime.

Sidney Crosby’s tying goal came at 19:05 of the third when he stuffed the puck past Vancouver goalie Eddie Lack.

“Today when they got their third one, I don’t know if we are panicking or not, but we kind of got a bad bounce on the fourth one,” Lack said. “I don’t know what happened. We gave the best player in the world an open net and with a minute to go and that can’t happen.”

For the first 59 minutes of the game, Crosby did not look anything like the best player in the world. He had been ordinary at best. But he set up Kris Letang’s goal that made it 4-3, scored the tying goal and then got the only goal of the shootout.

“We played a good third period,” said Canuck captain Henrik Sedin. “There has just been some bad bounces. It’s not like we don’t know what to do. I don’t think we’re fragile. I thought we played a good game tonight against a great team and we should have won the game.

“We gave up two goals against maybe the best offensive team in the league over 59 minutes. That’s good, but again we can’t hold onto leads and that hurts. We should have five or six more points and be up with the top teams in the West.”

Higgins took a breakaway pass from Jannik Hansen, fought off a check by defenceman Simon Despres and beat Fleury with a backhand to put Vancouver up 3-2 at 13:07 of the third. Just 17 seconds later, winger Zack Kassian took a pass from Higgins and flipped a high backhand of his own past Fleury.

The game was almost overshadowed by all the Olympic-related news earlier in the day when Canada, and some other countries, announced rosters for their national teams.

Injured goalie Roberto Luongo and defenceman Dan Hamhuis were selected to Team Canada, while Henrik and Daniel Sedin and injured defenceman Alex Edler were named to the Swedish team.

With Ryan Kesler (United States) and Yannick Weber (Switzerland) already selected, the Canucks will have seven Olympians in Sochi, Russia next month.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Canucks just aren’t playing well enough to beat the good NHL teams. That 10-1-1 run in December is beginning to feel like a distant memory.

“It's all around us right now,” coach John Tortorella said of his team’s late-game struggles. “There's no sense whining about it, no sense looking for excuses. We just have to continue to try to get better as a team.”

Tortorella said he has never been involved with a club that has lost so many late leads in a short span “No, no, I haven't. This one was a doozy. It is what it is. That's what is around us. We're going to try to exorcise it and get it away from us. . .The state of our team, we’ve just got to try to get the positives and build on it.”

Tortorella tried to shake things up by benching a couple of his veterans Tuesday night. Tortorella scratched wingers David Booth and Dale Weise, replacing them with American League call-ups Darren Archibald and Benn Ferriero.

Booth would not comment following the morning game-day skate about being scratched.

“If I say something I’ll just get into trouble,” he said.

In a pre-game radio interview, Tortorella said, “David Booth, I can’t find him.”

Pittsburgh grabbed a 2-0 lead at 5:25 of the second period when Evgeni Malkin took a pass from James Neal and beat Lack glove side from the slot. The goal, Malkin’s12th of the season, came just seconds after Fleury stopped Hansen on a breakaway.

The Canucks cut the lead in half at the 15:35 of the second period when defenceman Jason Garrison intercepted a Crosby clearing attempt and beat Fleury from just inside the left point.

The Penguins scored the only goal of the first period when Brian Gibbons got by Hansen on the right boards, drove to the net and slid the puck between the legs of Lack at the 13:15 mark.

Henrik Sedin played despite an injured hand suffered in Sunday night’s loss in Anaheim. Sedin was not able to take any faceoffs on Tuesday night.

ICE CHIPS: The Canucks are now 2-6 this season in shootouts. Zack Kassian, Mike Santorelli and Chris Higgins all failed to score in Tuesday night’s shootout.

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